Bihar youth’s death: Friends to seek justice

Patna, Aug 9 (IANS) After family, now friends of 34-year-old Satnam Singh Mann, who died in mysterious circumstances in Kerala, wish to seek justice for him.

Mann, from Bihar’s Gaya district, was brought dead to the Medical College Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram last Saturday, according to his family. His friends, mostly students of Ram Manohar Lohia National Law University, Lucknow, have decided to launch a campaign of justice for him.

“We will organise a condolence meeting on the campus soon and chalk out strategy for the course of action to seek justice,” Pallav Kumar, one of the nine friends, who visited Mann’s native place, told IANS over phone Thursday.

Another friend Vikrant said they would take out a candle-light march in Lucknow and stage a sit-in in front of India Gate in Delhi.

Mann’s friends would approach the National Human Rights Commission also. “We will not sit silent but fight for justice,” said one of his friend.

A businessman, Singh had told IANS over telephone that neither he nor his family was satisfied by the Kerala government’s decision to order a Crime Branch probe into the death.

“We strongly suspect that my grandson was brutally tortured in jail. It’s a case for CBI,” he said.

“Mann was handed over to police in Kollam after he had objected to the presence of foreigners around spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi and also raised objections to certain parts of her speech. It is a matter of a probe,” Singh said.

Mann, a law student in Lucknow, was arrested when he created disturbances at spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi’s ashram near Kollam last week. He was charged with trying to attack the Mata.